


Ground Zero

by costumejail



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, like her mom and the ultra vs are all at least mentioned, theres like. some relationships and some other characters but rlly its jsut abt her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29187738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/costumejail/pseuds/costumejail
Summary: The point closest to a detonation, a starting place. You can choose to rebuild or you can leave it barren but either way, nothing will ever be the same.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 8





	Ground Zero

**Author's Note:**

> Apart from the violence and character death warnings, there's also two brief mentions of alcohol/drunkenness.

You can’t say anyone prepared you to be a weapon. There was no day when you were taught the essentials of growing up in a war and no one ever thought to give you the top ten tips to living in an apocalypse. You didn’t need it laid out and explained to you because no one honestly thought that you’d ever have to live without these certainties. You’re a threat. You’re a child of the gun. You’re a bomb. 

You _were_ a bomb. 

You marched into the city for a last stand followed by a crowd of people that would drink to your death as easily as they’d drink to a particularly engaging bet. You were armed with the knowledge that the people who raised you had never told you a fundamental truth about your existence. You didn’t plan on walking back out and you were as sure you were doing the right thing as you were absolutely fucking pissed off that it was down to you to do it. 

They put you on your knees in front of the whole world and forced a mask over your face and you thought _this soul’s been through this already_ and you thought _a plasma blast through my jaw would be a nicer way to go_ and you detonated. 

And then you blinked awake to thirty drunken, confused faces and a startled cheer of recognition and the news that it’s over, you did it.

You can’t say anyone prepared you to be a trophy. 

Though, it seems like that should be easier. You get recognized everywhere, you rarely pay for your goods when trading, never pay full price except for at Tommy’s. You swear that bastard’s more of a cockroach than you are. But apart from him, you’re the Zone’s little sister. Everyone thinks they know you, offers a place at their table or a ride to wherever you’re going. 

You have a Mom, now, too. Flesh and blood and everything. You thought you were looking in a mirror, first time you saw her. Guess souls are more visible than you thought. But she never met you and you don’t remember her. It’s the missing-tooth ache of _I should know you,_ of _we’re made of the same stuff,_ of _you're the most familiar stranger I’ve ever met._ But that’s easy enough to get over. She says “Do I know you?” and you say “Not yet.” and Vaya laughs so hard xe nearly pisses. 

Because that’s new, too. Everyone you knew before you went up in lightning and static made it through. Vaya sits in a dead man’s chair and spins tales for the whole desert to hear. A few days after you wake up a battered truck pulls up in front of the station and that’s when you learn that it’s been nearly two moons since the city fell. You almost don’t recognize Val, hair short and fading pink, not looking down his nose anymore, arm-in-arm with Vinyl. And you’re happy for them, Witch, you’re happy for them. 

But now you know that you’re behind. You get your first sympathy pang for your mother because if this is what missing two moons feels like then missing seventeen years must be a damn sight harder to adjust to. 

Every now and then she says something, a word or a phrase that’s died out along with most of the people that were alive when she went under, and you put a hand on her arm and listen carefully as she explains some knowledge lost a lifetime ago. She sees ghosts everywhere. People that she isn’t sure that she knows and places that she can’t say for sure if she’s ever been. 

You see ghosts, too. 

But your ghosts are in the mirror, the twist of your lip and the arch of your eyebrow. And your ghosts are splashed on walls around the Zones and against the remnants of the city. The desert never let go of them and they’re never going to let go of you, you think, as you see yourself rendered on brick for the first time. 

They painted your eyes green. You wonder if that’s how they looked in the moment before detonation or if the artist just never looked at you close enough to see your real colour.

And you’re no longer a weapon. You’ve barely been your own person, you’ve come to realize, but they don’t even see you as a ghost anymore. You’re a trophy, a martyr that wasn’t supposed to come back, you’re a variance on a bedtime story that all the parents who hear the world without headphones tell to kids who now will never fill a prescription. You turn to Vamos because just the two of you went on this supply run (though they’re not runs, anymore, that phrase died out, too. Nothing to run from) and you think _Phoenix fucking Witch, I can’t do this_ and there’s something far too recognizable in Vamos’ eyes. 

There’s a spark. 

“You’d think that after dying for all of our lives, or whatever, they’d try to make you look hot,” they complain and you know it’s an apology. 

“Yeah, well, least they didn’t paint me in that rusted fuckin’ outfit you thought was bonus track,” and they know it’s a thank you. 

They laugh and something breaks and you’re laughing too and you both clutch at each other and laugh until you cry and then you sob and you scream and you take turns with the one gun that neither of you convinced yourself would be unnecessary and you kill the vision of you that the Zones has, scorch marks all over that pretty, pretty mural, and it’s okay because that wasn’t you and it never will be again. 

Paint’s cheap now, anyone can paint it again if they want to. 

So, no. No one ever taught you how to be a weapon and no one ever taught you how to be a ghost or a trophy either. But they taught you how to love and how to sing and how to drive fast with the windows down and those are all a bit more suited to this new world anyway. 

You can figure the rest out as you go along, kinda seems like that’s what everyone else is doing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/Kudos appreciated!


End file.
